12-26-07

Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 1:01 PM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: Merry Christmas! ... yesterday.

Hi Everyone!

Well, I was going to send some photos of Christmas here in Brazil, but the batteries in my camera just died.

So, on Thursday, President came to our house to inspect. We woke up at 5:30 to do some last minute cleaning. When he got there he said that he appreciated how clean we kept the place, that he wouldn´t mind sleeping or living there, and that it was a miracle that we could keep such a small place so organized. Apparently our house is the smallest in the mission. He told us we need to find a new place to live because it´s too small. We study at the kitchen table and hang our clothes on a bar over the bed. He says we need a separate room to study and a closet. So now, we´re looking for a new house. The members that rent us the house were really sad. The missionaries have lived with them for over 30 years.

Sunday morning was pretty disappointing. We weren´t able to get a single investigator to go to church. However, after church, we were able to teach 2 lessons and find an awesome new family to teach all before lunch.

Luckily, I was able to find an 'A' string for the violin I was using. But I didn´t get to practice at all before the performance on Christmas. It could have been a lot better, but overall it worked out. It was really neat to sing in a mission choir. Afterwards, some missionaries put on a very funny Christmas play from the view of a bull and a donkey who were at the stable.

Christmas was really neat. When we saw that we got Christmas decoration in one of the packages, we decorated the house at the last minute. Thanks everyone for remembering me here in Brazil. Now that the rehersals are over, I have time on P-days to answer your letters.

Love Elder Allred.

12-19-07

Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 1:14 PM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: Wow! It´s almost Christmas!

Hello everyone!

I think one of the best Christmas presents I´m going to get is a real P-day - the Wednesday after Christmas. Our P-days have been occupied with rehersals for our Christmas conference. Elder Cruz is in the theatrical performance. I´m going to be singing in the choir, singing and playing violin in a quartet, and playing violin in another song. Hopefully in works out all right. I´m using the violin of some member that lives somewhere in the mission. One of the other missionaries brings it to the practice every week. I haven´t really got to practice the violin parts well because the first two weeks I didn´t have a shoulder rest and today the A string broke. Hopefully I can find another one before next week.

Anyway, that´s been eating up all our time on P-days. Today we left the house at 6:30am, took a bus, a train, and then another bus. Then we walked through the rain to the stake center where the performance will be. We just got back to St. Andre and really don´t have any P-day left. It´s a problem because tomorrow we have interviews with President Teixeira and this transfer he´s coming to our houses to do the interviews and inspect our house. We haven´t had a single P-day to clean since my second week in the mission field.

The work here is great. We don´t have any firm investigators right now, but we´re working hard. Some days we walk all day long, covering pretty much our entire area, and aren´t able to teach a single person - all our appointments fall through and no one will let us into their home. Then other days we are able to teach 5 lessons and get 3-4 new investigators (for some funny reason, these days are a little less common). Last Sunday morning before church, Elder Cruz and I were literally running as fast as we could from house to house to pick up our investigators to bring to church because I have to be there on time to play the opening hymn. We were only able to get one person to sacrament meeting - Wennington. He´s going to get baptized, but first he needs to stop smoking and drinking coffee. He´s about 25. He started tallying the prayers he says on a paper he put on the wall because he can never remember whether or not he said his prayers that day.

The assistants to the president in our mission are amazing. I heard in a period of 4 months they baptized over 80 people. They teach about 50-80 lessons a week. My companion asked them how they teach so many lessons. (Preach My Gospel says that a lesson is when you start with a prayer, teach a principle of the gospel, and end with a prayer). They said that they teach lessons right there on the streets. They do a street contact and tell the person they have a quick message. Then they ask permission to say a quick prayer. So they pray with the person and teach him right there on the street. Then they set up an appointment to teach that person in his house. Therefore, they´ve already taught a lesson in about 5 minutes, and they have a new investigator.
Elder Cruz and I decided to try this. Last week we taught one lady in a store and another man on the sidewalk. The man was painting a gate and it turns out he doesn´t live in St. André, but we have a return appoint to teach the lady, who is actually the owner of the shop where we taught her.

Sometimes I forget which language I´m speaking, especially because I teach English class twice a week with people that can converse in English fairly well. Then afterwards it´s hard to switch back to Portuguese. One morning last week, I woke up and started talking with Elder Cruz in English, just out of habit. I could see that he didn´t understand me, but I didn´t realize until about a minute later that it was because I was speaking English. Then other times, my sentences will be half English and half Portuguese.

Love, Elder Allred

12-12-07 (2)

Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 12:14 PM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: Pictures! - Chris´s Baptism

More pictures!
This is Chris´s baptism. He was baptized on Saturday 17 November. I confirmed him the next day, Sunday. Then, on the 25th (Sunday), he received the Aaronic Priesthood.
One day after his baptism, he walked around all day with us and helped us teach. He´s almost finished the Book of Mormon. It was really helpful when he could tell people who were struggling with the Word of Wisdom how he stopped smoking.

--
Elder Allred

12-12-07

Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 11:53 AM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: Pictures! - Sidi´s Baptism

Hi everyone! I finally got a way to connect my camera to the computer, so now you can se some pictures!
This is Sidi´s baptism! It happened on Sunday 11 November. It was supposed to happen on the Saturday before, but her car broke down on the way to church. :)

--
Elder Allred

12-4-07

Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 11:47 AM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: Transfers!

Hello Everybody!

Today´s email is a day early because of transfers. Every 6 weeks there are transfers, and they´re on Tuesday, so that becomes our P-day. Hurray! I didn´t get transfered. But, sad day, Elder Quigley did. I was only with my trainer for one transfer. My new companion is a Brazilian - Elder Cruz. He´s been on the mission only a year more than I have. He´s the only member in his family, and he´s only been in the church for 5 years. His mom won´t let his younger two brothers get baptized. But they said they want to serve missions. :)
I´m really excited for this transfer because I´m going to learn a lot of Portuguese. Elder Cruz doesn´t really speak any English. I´ll probably be even more confused. Now I´m the only American in my district. And, on top of the language, it´s up to me to remember where all the investigators and members live in our area.

Love Elder Allred

P.S. Does anyone have any good ideas of what I can do for my companion for Christmas? It´s kind of hard to make something or buy something for him because we´re always together. How do I keep it a surprise? Thanks for all the support everyone!

11-28-07

Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:58 AM
To: Allred, Kevin
Subject: 1123581321345589...Test: does anyone recognize this number sequence?

Hi!

Well, I was going to send some pictures, but I left the cord at the house. Hopefully next week.

Next Tuesday is transfers, so I don´t know where I´ll be next P-day. Our English class that we taught last night was really sad that it "could" be the last time they see us. We always start and end English class with a prayer, and Sidi prepared a prayer in English for the end of class that was very special. In her prayer she thanked her "Dad" for the missionaries and asked Him to let us stay at least for Christmas. Then she asked that even if we needed to go that He would bless us throughout our missions.
After class, she gave us both our Christmas presents and told us to open them when we got home. We each got a Brazilian flag, a tie, and a pair of socks! But the most special present we received was her testimony. She told us of how the Lord had prepared her for baptism. When we invited her to be baptized, she was very surpised at herself when she said yes. Then she told us of a few very special experiences that helped her know she was making the right decision.

Guess what! Now Cris is giving out pass-along cards to his friends! Did I tell you guys that a few years ago he ran for what would be the equivalent of City Councilman under the Communist Party of Brazil? He´s since converted from communism. He´s such a new person than what he used to be. He was showing me some pictures of him before I met him. In each picture, he had a pipe or cigar in his mouth. Now, looking at him, I can see that his countenance has changed. He might even go teaching with us sometime this week!
In church everyone was asking us where Cris is from because he has a slight accent. The funny thing is that he´s actually Brazilian. Well, both his parents were. They were traveling, and he was born in Greece. Then, they moved back to Brazil, but while he was still young they moved some more times. He´s lived in Cuba, Columbia, and some other places I can´t remember. Anyway, Portuguese is actually his second language. He grew up using Spanish. He´s only lived in Brazil for 7 years now. He always helps us with our Portuguese. I think he knows more about the language that other people around here do because he had to learn all the rules himself. If there´s one language that isn´t used correctly by it´s own people, it´s Brazilian Portuguese, probably because there are so many grammer rules. Portuguese is supposed to be the hardest of the Latin-based languages to learn.

This last Friday we had "Nova Força" (New Force/Strength). It was a training for all the new missionaries from this transfer. I had three specific questions to which I was working on finding the answers. President Teixeira answered two of them in his presentation and Sister Teixeira answered the other one in hers. It´s just more evidence that our leaders can receive revelation for us.
Besides those three things, one really neat thing I learned is that you don´t plan your goals. You set your goals and then plan to reach them. He used the analogy of a travel plan. It´s not setting a goal if you can see the destination. Most of the time you pick a destination before you even now how you´re going to get there. Then you plan the trip.
During the training he talked a lot about preparation. The thought came to my mind that sometimes appointments fall through because the Lord won´t let you teach if you´re not prepared to teach.

Love,
Elder Allred (and love everyone else too, because that´s what the scriptures say)

11-21-07

Question and Answer Session:

-What is your p-day like?

* Well, it depends on the day.  My first P-day in the field we went to the temple, and that took up all of our time besides email.  The next P-day we spent all day cleaning the apartment because there was mold everywhere and bugs all over the walls.  Last P-day and today and for all the p-days until Christmas we go to São Paulo (about a 2 hour trip each way) for rehearsals for our Mission Christmas Program.  Elder Quigley is the going to be in charge of all the video stuff, and we’re both in the choir.  I think they record it and send a copy to you guys.  We got back to our house today about 5:00pm and so we just have enough time to do email really quickly.  P-day ends at 6:00 and we work the rest of the night.

 

-Do you have maids or do you get to do your own cooking/laundry?

*Nope.  No maids.  We do all our own laundry and cleaning and stuff.  We don’t have to cook very often, because we always eat lunch at a member’s house.  Lunch is pretty much the only meal of the day here.  You eat some fruit for breakfast, a big lunch, and maybe a really small dinner and the very end of the day.  Dinner hour doesn’t really exist in our mission.  After lunch we just keep working until we get to our house again between 9 and 9:30pm.  Then we might eat something really quick before bed.

 

-Did the slug make it back in?

*No, but today I found a huge spider that holds the world record for long jumping.  It was impossible to squish it and escaped somewhere in the kitchen.

 

-How have you been dealing with the humidity?

*I don’t really notice a difference.  It just makes it take longer to dry clothes (especially when it rains) and makes the mold grow faster.

 

-How’s the mission life?

*Great! I love it.  Last Saturday we baptized Cris (his real name is Cristófes Badarovsk Chaves).  It took Elder Quigley about 5 times trying to say his name right in the baptismal font.  I confirmed him on Sunday.  I was pretty nervous because I had never done that before, let alone in Portuguese.  But it worked out good.

Sidi (the one we baptized a week before) is already giving out pass-along-cards to people.  She’s in our English Class (that’s how we met her).  Yesterday in class we went around the room and to practice their English, everyone told for what they were grateful because Thursday is Thanksgiving.  Sidi said, "I am grateful for to God to put in my life two wonderful guys who they changed my life and make my soul to burn when they speak of God.  It is you guys."  That was one of the most wonderful things I’ve heard.  Missionary work is amazing.

 

-How big is your area?

*It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to walk from one end to the other.  It’s pretty small in area, but there are about a bajillion people here because all the houses are built in, on top of, under, and behind other houses.

 

-How well does your hot water coil work?

*It actually has a thing on the end that heats up the water pretty good.  The first time I only saw the wires wrapped around the pipe.  Basically all the houses have the same thing.  I heard one Elder say that because the wires are bare, he can feel a little shock with his.  And sometimes their hair stands on end when they shower.  Ours usually works fine, but sometimes we have to fiddle with it.  Besides that, everything else is cold water.  Sometimes I heat up water on the stove to wash dishes because I hate washing dishes in cold water.

 

Love, Elder Allred.